GENIAL soul giant Geno Washington is alive and well and living in London.
Things are going great for the ebullient American these days with a new album and loads of bookings, but before Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ “Geno” hit No 1 in the charts and put him back on the map in 1980 his career was in the doldrums. I talked to Geno just before a recent gig on the Isle of Wight.
Looking back at the late 1970s, Geno admitted: “I couldn’t write nothing man - I’d lost my confidence, and started blaming my problems on other things. A tour with the Beach Boys had just fallen through and I had a real bad nervous breakdown - I wouldn’t talk to my wife and I just had no career at that time. I guess the Dexy’s hit was the rebirth of my whole life. Six months later I returned to the UK - I’d got my confidence back and I was getting into the groove. Offers were coming in for me to perform again and I thought “I’m coming back for the hell of it,” and it\s been all gravy since then.”
Geno was born in Evansville, Indiana, and was stationed in East Anglia with the US Air Force during the 1960s. He became a singer by accident after getting on stage to sing at a club. “Blues was my first love,” admitted Geno, “but soul was the thing back in the early 1960s when I formed the Ram Jam Band after leaving the Air Force.” When I told Geno that I had first seen him perform back in 1964 at the old Concorde Club in Southampton, he was amazed. “Oh, my God, man I will always remember that place - it was a hot place to be then, a real, bad-ass place,” enthused Geno. “You were really there? Man, you’re only about the fourth person I’ve talked to in the last forty years who remembers those days! We really put on a show there. In those days you had to
reach out and excite the crowd even if it meant acting crazy and stupid - you wanna gig, you gotta groove. They paid for the tickets and you had to entertain them.”
After touring with the Ram Jam Band for several years and recording four albums with them, Geno disbanded the group in 1970, hibernating for a few years before returning shaven-headed to resume his career with a succession of different line-ups. But by the end of the 1970s Geno was based in the USA with his career in decline. “Things changed for me when I met a lady called Pat Collins,” Geno told me. “She was a psychic who worked for the Los Angeles Police Department, and I started hypnotherapy sessions with her. This led to me studying for a Hypnotherapy Degree at the University of San Francisco and a huge
surge of creativity coinciding with the Dexy’s hit relaunching my career.”
Back in the UK in the 1980s, Geno was his old, ebullient self again and
cries of “Geno! Geno! Geno!” echoed out at clubs and venues all over the country. “If you got the glide in your stride and the loot in your suit, you got the stuff in your cup,” laughed Geno. “I was rejuvenated and enjoying life again - I was so happy I was scared of dyin'! I started writing my own songs and I wrote a book called “The Blood Brothers” which got good reviews.”
Geno has recently poured his creativity into a new album “The Return of the G.” A CD containing completely original material, it is available through Geno’s website www.genowashington.com. “We are in talks with a major record company to get proper distribution,” said Geno, “I think it’s a great album and I hope to release a single from it soon. Meanwhile, I’m just gonna keep performing. To me you’re only as good as your last gig. What I do is totally hardcore soul, I’m not doing cabaret soul like some of those guys. I keep it real, and people come up to me after gigs and say “hey man, you were just as good tonight as you were when I saw you thirty years ago.” “That’s what keeps me going - it’s in the blood and it still gives me a thrill to perform. I have two bands now, the Purple Aces which is my blues band, and the Ram Jam Band
for my soul act, although the two overlap. People always want to hear the soul hits.”
Geno’s next big gig is The Official Edwin Starr Tribute Concert at the
Assembly Rooms in Tamworth, Staffordshire on Sunday September 28. Geno tops the bill in memory of the late soul star - also playing are The Real Thing, Clem Curtis and The Foundations and many more acts. For more info ring 01827 709620. (©Peter Ashton 2003)

        “One of the 50 greatest blues guitarists who ever walked the earth” is coming to the Isle of Wight this month. Carvin Jones is the man; the quote from Guitarist Magazine may or may not be accurate, but he is definitely worth seeing if you like artists like Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Eric Clapton who have all influenced him.
Carvin Jones was born in Lufkin, Texas in June 1966, first picking up on the blues by listening to his grandfather’s BB King records. Aged 11, Carvin recalls: "My grandmother bought me my first guitar because I would borrow other people's and when they came back to get them, I'd bum out. She took me downtown and bought me a guitar. I'll never forget that day. My part of town was a rough neighbourhood with a capital R. "I saw people literally get killed - shot, stabbed, whatever. The guitar kept me out of trouble because I was always inside playing the guitar away from that."
For a few years after high school Carvin performed at small venues around Texas, but decided to move to Arizona in 1989. He moved in with his aunt and uncle, The Rev Henry Adams and his wife Mattie, in their home in South Phoenix.
He formed his first band in 1990 and began taking gigs anywhere they could get bookings. ”We'd go in and play for hamburgers and soda pop,” Carvin laughs.
By March, 1991, the Band had gained tremendous local popularity, playing at clubs all over the Valley. Over the next decade Carvin and his band spread the blues word all over the USA, celebrating their 3000th performance in March 2000.
Over the past ten years, the Carvin Jones Band has opened for guitar
legends BB King, Santana and Albert King, and has performed with Joe Cocker and the Fabulous Thunderbird's and REO Speedwagon. Carvin and his band have made several successful tours of Europe, with Carvin’s showmanship and extrovert guitar style impressing at venues like The Brook in Southampton.
Carvin and friends will be getting down to some real gritty blues at
Shanklin’s Portico Theatre on Saturday September 20 - ring 01983 730930 for more details. (©Peter Ashton 2003)